Turkish Kurds watch as smoke from fighting rises over the Syrian border town of Kobani. Photograph: Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters3
Kurds battling Islamic State militants for control of Kobani fear
the extremist group may have used an unidentified chemical weapon,
according to officials and one of the few doctors still working in the
besieged Syrian town.
Patients with blisters, burning eyes and breathing difficulties
turned up at a clinic after a blast was heard on Tuesday evening, Dr
Walat Omar said. He described the symptoms as abnormal and said he could
not identify their cause, but suspected a chemical weapon.
“After a loud explosion [on Tuesday night], we received some patients
with abnormal symptoms. They reported a bad smell which produced some
kind of allergic reaction,” Omar said in a telephone interview that was
periodically disrupted by heavy explosions. Blisters on the
body of a man in Kobani which Kurds fear may have been caused by
Islamic State’s use of a chemical weapon. The Guardian is unable to
ascertain the cause of the blisters.Photograph: Walat Omar
“Some had red patches and blisters on their skins, others had
difficulties breathing and others were vomiting, with painful throats,
and others with burning eyes and noses. There was one patient, all his
body was covered in red patches and blisters.”
Islamic State (Isis) is thought to have obtained stocks of ageing but
still potent chemical weapons when it seized Iraqi army bases where
they were stored, the New York Times reported earlier this month.
In June, the group took control of a sprawling complex that had been
the heart of Saddam Hussein’s chemical weapons programme, Al-Muthanna
State Establishment. There may also have been chemical weapons buried or
abandoned elsewhere, that were not destroyed by US forces or the Iraqi
military.
Stocks manufactured before 1991 are dirty, corroded and not always easy to identify or use, but can still cause serious injury.
Iraqi officials said 11 police officers were poisoned by chlorine gas last month, when Isis fighters used it to attack the Iraqi town of Duluiya. All the officers survived.
That attack was hundreds of miles from Kobani, near the Syrian
border, where Omar said he feared eight civilians had been injured by
some kind of chemical attack.
Intense fighting has made it impossible to get doctors the equipment
they need to do definitive tests for the use of chemical weapons, but
Omar said they displayed symptoms distinct from anything else he had
treated in weeks of heavy battles.
He said he had ruled out chlorine gas or biological weapons, based on
his medical training, but thought the injuries were caused by a
chemical. Trained in Ukraine, he is originally from Kobani and returned
there to work after seven years at medical school.
“This is the first time we have seen this kind of condition,” Omar
said. “I have seen other strange conditions but nothing like this
before.”
The opinions of chemical weapons experts consulted by the Guardian
were divided after seening a series of pictures provided by Omar of a
young man with large skin blisters and a severely swollen lip.
The pictures did not have any metadata to confirm the time and place
they were taken, but had not been published on the internet before Omar
provided them to a Kurdish journalist.
One expert with personal experience of treating mustard gas victims
said that, although the blisters were not typical, the symptoms overall
were consistent with a possible sulphur mustard poisoning. That could
only be confirmed with a urine or blood test.
Other experts said that while the symptoms could be consistent with
exposure to a chemical agent, they were somewhat unusual and other
medical conditions, such as a severe allergic reaction, would need to be
ruled out.
Senior Kurdish politicians said they feared a chemical attack, and had asked for testing kits to seek confirmation.
“Many people were injured … and showed symptoms of chemical weapons
use: choking, breathing difficulties, bleeding eyes, burning skin etc,”
said Idris Nassan, deputy foreign minister of the Kobani administration.
“Some of the doctors say that it might be phosphorus or poison gas of
some kind, but the investigation is ongoing, we don’t know for sure.”
It is possible that Isis fighters could mistake some chemical
munitions for ordinary weapons and use them without being aware of what
they are handling. It could also be harder to evaluate the impact of
attacks using partially degraded weapons, one expert said.
“Various factors might contribute to far milder symptoms than those
normally associated with mustard agent exposure under combat conditions.
These could include impure or degraded agent, short-term exposure, or
exposure to a limited volume of agent,” said Jean-Pascal Zanders, a
former analyst with the chemical and biological warfare project at the
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
The bomb believed to have caused the injuries treated by Omar
exploded at about 10pm in west Kobani, near a hospital. Omar said he
thought Isis may have targeted the medical centre to try to undermine
morale, although it was not being used and none of the forces defending
the city were in the area.
“Some fighters were further away, they complained about their eyes
watering and burning, and pain in their nose,” he said, estimating that
around 20 of them were affected but needed only basic first aid.
Regarding civilians who were closer to the blast, Omar said he was
treating affected patients with oxygen, the steroid cortisone and other
drugs until about 2.30am, as well as fielding calls from people who did
not want to leave their homes.
The three most seriously injured patients, who ranged in age from 17
to over 40, stayed in the clinic overnight for observation and Omar was
trying to arrange for their evacuation to Turkey for further treatment.
One Kurdish activist said Kobani may have been hit by teargas for the
first time, perhaps drifting across from a Turkish border village where
police had been using it for weeks to break up crowds of demonstrators.
It has not been deployed in the intense battles for Kobani and so would
not be recognised by residents, although demonstrations nearest to the
border have almost all been in daylight hours, while Omar reported
victims arriving well after nightfall. Additional reporting by Constanze Letsch copy http://www.theguardian.com/
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